may09 - Slot Techslot-tech.com/members/magazine/lores/May09.pdf · removing the double-sided VHB tape and cleaning off the ... 3M Touch Systems has worked with ... Touch Sensors from

May 2009Slot Tech MagazinePage 4

Randy Fromm's

Slot Tech Magazine

EditorRandy Fromm

Technical WritersTed Befus, Kevin Noble, Pat

Porath, James Borg

Slot Tech Magazine is publishedmonthly bySlot Tech Magazine1944 Falmouth Dr.El Cajon, CA 92020-2827tel.619.593.6131 fax.619.593.6132e-mail [email protected] the website at slot-techs.com

SUBSCRIPTIONSDomestic (North America) 1 year - $60.002 years - $120.00International1 year - $120.002 years - $240.00

Copyright 2009 under the UniversalCopyright Convention. All rights re-served.

Slot Tech Maga-zine

May 2009

Inside Slot Tech Magazine

Page 4 - EditorialPage 6 - Command™Strips for Touch Sensors from 3MPage 10 - Twist of FatePage 18 - Problems SolvedPage 22 - Quick and Simple Repairs #50Page 26 - Subscriptions and Order Form

Slot Tech Magazine is anofficial publication of

Randy Fromm

Randy Fromm - Publisher

The Command Strips are here!The Command Strips are here!

I have been sitting on this report for years now. I am finally, afteryears of being sworn to secrecy, happy to report that 3M’s CommandStrips is are now available in strips that are specifically manufac-tured to mount 3M MicroTouch ClearTek II touch sensors to gamingmonitors. You’ve seen advertisements for Command Strips ontelevision. You can use it them to affix a picture hook to the walland hang a heavy, framed painting. When you want to remove it,you simply pull on a tab and the Command Strip releases itself fromthe wall without leaving a mark. It’s based on the same technology,just formulated in long strips for touch sensors. Starting NOW, notools will be required to remove and replace a touchscreen whenyou use the Command Strips. Admit it. How many times have younoticed a dirty monitor screen but just didn’t want to hassle withremoving the double-sided VHB tape and cleaning off the gummyresidue it leaves behind? Of course, it will take a while to retrofityour entire casino floor but I highly recommend that you order amess of strips right now so you can have them on hand. Believe me,you will never want to see a roll of VHB again once you try this newtechnique.

Gary Platt Manufacturing, makers of the best casino seating in theworld, have thrown Slot Tech Magazine a bone and have placed anorder to run a few ads with us. Yes, they realize that there is noth-ing electronic to repair in a casino chair. It is a SUPPORT issue.They support Slot Tech Magazine and what we’re trying to accom-plish. I am begging you, when you are considering replacementseating for your casino, please consider Gary Platt Manufacturingand please mention that you saw their ad in Slot Tech Magazine.

We have another new friend in Endicott Research Group, a manu-facturer of inverters for LCD monitors. I am working with them toput together a line of universal replacement inverters for all of themonitors we use in gaming. As much as I enjoy component levelrepair, backlight inverters are cheap and it generally isn’t practicalto repair them. We didn’t have a chance to finish the project for thismonth but look to ERG to provide us with a guide to their completeline of replacement inverters in the near future.

That’s all for this month. See you at TechFest!

Slot Tech MagazineMay 2009 Page 5


Slot Tech Feature Article

Slot machinemaintenance is nowalk in the park, just

ask any slot technician.And as a group they wouldprobably say that theirleast favorite task isremoving a damaged touchsensor or a sensor from abroken display. Whether itis slicing through the VHBtape to remove the sensoror cleaning up the stickyadhesive residue beforeapplying another strip ofVHB to mount the sensor,it is slow going, messy and

they know there has to be abetter way…and there is,Command Strips for TouchSensors from 3M.

Double-sided VHB tape isthe industry’s preferredadhesive for mountingtouch sensors to gamingdisplays due to itsunsurpassed holding powerin preventing sensormovement duringprolonged player use andover long periods of time.Its aggressive bondingcharacteristics secure the

touch sensor to the displayhousing so tightly that itcreates a nearlyunbreakable bond. VHBtape is a product that doesits job well, sometimes toowell if you have to replacethe touch sensor.

As happens on the 24/7,semi-unattendedenvironment of the casinofloor players can damagethe touch sensor or a LCDcan malfunction, whichrequires slot techs toreplace one or the other. In

The New Las Vegas Strip…Command™Strips for Touch Sensors from 3M



either case, the touchsensor must come off andthat can be a timeconsuming and difficulttask.

Every slot tech has his orher own method forremoving the touch sensor.Some slice the VHB andpry off the sensor; othersprefer to pull wire throughthe VHB to separate thesensor. In both cases, it istime consuming, difficultwork.

As a leading manufacturerof touch sensors for thegaming industry, 3M TouchSystems has worked withslot technicians for manyyears to help train them ineffective touch sensorintegration and procedures.Time and time again, weheard that removing andreintegrating the touchsensor is their mostburdensome task and amore efficient methodwould make a big differencein their jobs and 3Mlistens.

IntroducingCommand™Strips forTouch Sensors from 3M, anew and unique method forquick removal and easyintegration of touchsensors. Based onCommand’s patented“stretch release” adhesivetechnology made popular inhome and office hang andremove applications, these“peel and stick” strips offera cost-effective and time-saving solution to the

existing VHB integrationmethod.

Once a touch sensor ismounted, by pulling theCommand Strips tab itstakes only seconds toremove a damaged touchsensor or the workingsensor from the damageddisplay, and then using theself-adhesive foam strips ittakes only minutes toreintegrate it. Compared totoday’s 45-60 minuteindustry average forremoving and integrating atouch sensor, that’s timeand money saved.

To really appreciate theease of using CommandStrips for Touch Sensorsyou need to try them. You’llfind there are no toolsrequired, no adhesive

residue to clean, and nopossible damage to thetouch screen or display.

To get a Command StripsSample Kit (enough stripsto mount a 20” touchsensor), either contact yourparts distributor, call 3M at888-659-1080, or registerat ww.3m.com/touchstrips.

Note: Command Strips forTouch Sensors weredeveloped for use with the3M™MicroTouch™SystemSCT3250EX (formerly,3M™MicroTouch™ClearTek™IISystem). Customers mustdetermine whetherCommand Strips aresuitable for use with theirparticular touch sensor andin their intendedapplication. - STM

New Feature (if you want it)!Let’s try some free classified ads for casinos and slottechs. This can be for almost anything you want to getrid of (hoppers, CRT monitors, old conversions, etc.).

OR

Maybe it’s something that you’re looking for. Need anold slot glass? Maybe someone has what you’re lookingfor. You can advertise for just about anything EXCEPThelp wanted. I will not accept ads that seek to hire a slottech. I WILL accept an ad from a slot tech that’s look-ing for a job, however. If you are in the unenviableposition of being laid off, I will be happy to publish anad for you.

We’ll see how it goes.

e-mail [email protected]




I had noticed that thescreen on one of the IGTmachines had become

somewhat large horizon-tally for quite a few days,but since I was partiallyrushed off my feet andwasn’t quite sure how totackle this monitor, I sort oflet it be as it was. It was stillin operation which was thebottom line and I had moreurgent matters to see to,like a completely FUBARmachine for instance. Themonitor showed a margin ofpincushion effect on it butnot too bad. However,things on it had gone frombad to worse after some

work had been done on themachine and it ended upgoing all green. To makematters worse, the touchscreen wasn’t respondingas desired either so it wastime to put my thinking capon at roll up my sleeves.

I decided to start off withthe easy job first. That’s thecolor problem. On lookingat the screen I could seethat most of it was reallygreen, there was also someblue visible but no red at allto be seen, nowhere. Acharging bull on the war-path would completelyignore it without even rais-ing an eyebrow.

Just for a kick, I hit thescreen to see if something

would happen and some-thing did happen. Actuallythree things happened.One was that I got a funnylook from a client sat closeby, the second was that Ihurt my hand and the thirdwas that for just a briefmoment, there was a flashof red. I hit it again andanother red flash appearedand disappeared again.Good. Very good. Just a dryjoint.

Why is it that most techni-cians I know (including theundersigned) jump to con-clusions? I ‘knew’ that thiskind of fault shouldn’t betoo much of a challenge tosink my teeth into but itshould set me off in highspirits for the real fault at

Twist of FateBy James Borg

Figure 1 (l) and figure 2 (r) - This is the Amp Metrimate connector used to connect the monitor to therest of the slot machine. In addition to the AC power for the monitor, the connector also carries thered, green and blue color signals (video) and the sync signals.


hand, namely the horizon-tal size. With that verypositive thought in mind, Ipulled the monitor out ofthe machine and startedthe trip to the workshop.

The monitor is a Ceronixmodel 1793. It was one ofthose units with little mod-ules (called PRAs whichstands for “precision resis-tor array” but in fact theycontain other componentsas well) soldered verticallyon to the CRT neck boardmaking up each individualcolor stage. I didn’t want tothink about the negativeaspect of this since I verymuch doubt if I had anynew PRAs in the spares inthe workshop. If the worsewas to come to the worst, Iwould have had to pull outa similar one from a FUBARmonitor and hope that theone I pulled out wasn’tFUBAR itself which wouldcomplicate matters some-what.

Editor’s Note: There is nocompany I know of that cantop Ceronix when it comes toobtaining replacements.Service is fast and ex-tremely friendly. Ceronixreplacement parts are dirtcheap. You can order any-thing you want from theirwebsite at ceronix.com. ThePRAs are especially light-weight and can be sent byAir Express anywhere in theworld at a very cheap cost.

Cutting the cable ties offfrom the CRT board toexpose the print and theconnections for a good

inspection didn’t offer anydecent conclusions as Icouldn’t see anythingwrong. I got my trusty mag-nifying glass out andscanned each and everysolder joint for a possibledry or fractured connection.The result was very disap-pointing. I was really hop-ing to find that elusive drysolder joint as otherwisethe thought of going intodetailed fault findingseemed quite daunting atthe time. The fact that theelectronics on these moni-tors is quite complex to saythe least, doesn’t help thesituation at all. Reasonbeing that this was sup-posed to be after all a‘quickie’, a morale booster,the calm before the stormperhaps? A fault which isn’t

a ‘quickie’ I can handlesince I get mentally tunedfor it from the very startand won’t leave a stoneunturned till I manage tolocate the fault. With noth-ing to lose, I still freshlyspotted some areas just forthe sake of using the sol-dering iron since I hadturned the heat on. No dryjoints there meant that thefault wasn’t a dry joint.How’s that for logic? Itcould be the case that theCRT socket was dirty, devel-oped an oxide, or was per-haps slightly out of place soI pulled the whole neckboard out from the tubeand sprayed some contactcleaner into it and pressedit firmly back. I mustn’t alsoignore the fact that the CRTcould be (Shock and some


horror pitched in!) faultyitself but I didn’t want tokill it off just like that. Idon’t normally kill off a CRTand I only do it once I’mperfectly sure that it’s goneto a point of no return, tomeet its maker in thehappy hunting ground.Apart from all that, it’s alsoa pain in the nether re-gions to replace.

It was a good time to go andcheck out the color again sothe trip back to the ma-chine commenced. Thewalk seemed endless some-how. I was lost in thoughtsand not happy at all. I haveto admit that I had badvibes about this. I didn’t seethe ‘hoped for’ bad solderjoint anywhere so thisexercise could in fact proveto be only a complete wasteof time. Pushing the moni-tor all the way home intothe AMP Metrimate socketmaking up the connectionto the outside world was apiece of cake.

This connection feeds themonitor the supply and theseparate RGB signals andother control lines. Turningon the machine and goingthrough its start up se-quence, different colorsflashed for a while but onlyGREEN and BLUE wereseen. No RED. Ouch! Whata disappointment. Thatmeans the monitor’s got togo back to the workshopand I would have to pull thecircuit diagram out to seewhat’s going on. Themanual I have is prettyneat, complicated to say the

least, but neat. My moralesort of hit the deck when Istarting flicking throughthe video section.

A quick look at the Trouble-shooting section wouldn’tgo amiss and low and be-hold, there was a sectionwhere ‘Missing Color’ wasdiscussed in depth. It wentinto great detail specifyingvoltages and test points andmeasurements and K-Filmand it made an interestingread. However, none of thathelped me a great deal as Icouldn’t find anythingwrong with the monitor.Something was definitelywrong as one of my colorswas definitely missing butwhat?

I didn’t have a suitablesignal to feed the monitorwith in the workshop sothat was a bit of a disadvan-tage really. Out of purechance, I happened to look

at the front of the screenand there was a faint whiteraster. White? Did I justsee white? Just hold yourhorses for a few moments.If it’s white then how comethere isn’t any RED colorshowing from the game? Awhite raster means that allthe three guns are workingproperly along with most ofthe video circuitry. This ledme to believe that therecould something externalto the monitor that wasupsetting the output to thescreen. Just to make surethat I was not going to starton a wild goose chase, Iinjected a low pulsatingvoltage just before the colordrivers individually. Trueenough, all the three colorsshowed on the screen. Ihad to sigh as that was aload off my mind. Also, thatproved the CRT was fine. Iwas pretty sure that thetube was not the culpritbut having said that, any-

Figure 3 - The monitor connection to the backplane


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Advertisementthing is really possible. Ithink my biggest relief wasthe fact that I didn’t have togo into great detail into thevideo section as it’s like amaze in there. Where youend up is anyone’s guessand the worst thing tohappen would be that I’dget totally lost and remainin there forever, only to befound as a skeleton in acorner with my multi-meterin one hand and the sche-matic in the other by an-other unfortunately techni-cian who ended up follow-ing my path and gettinglost himself.

What if the connector at theback of the monitor thatconnects the monitor to themachine itself was faulty onone color pin? I had tobreathe a sigh of relief atthat point as things weren’tas bad as I originallythought they were. A visual


showed that it was fine.Resistance checks were allthe same for all the colorsand so did the voltageswhen compared betweeneach other. It was all lead-ing me to conclude that theproblem wasn’t at all fromthe monitor but from themachine itself.

The next stage of the opera-tion was to go to the ma-chine and check out theconnector to the monitorthere (Fig. 1). Utilizing themetal body as the ground, Ipoked each of the pinsrelating to each color andonly the GREEN and theBLUE gave me a resistancereading. The RED wasinfinite (Yippeee). Tracingfrom the connector led meto the backplane and to aconnector, P5.

A good idea was to checkthe wires between thisconnector and the directfeed to the monitor (Fig. 1).All the three wires concern-ing me were arriving nicelyup there. The problem wasobviously before P5. It couldbe something to do with thebackplane itself and even-tually originating from themotherboard. Mega Ouch!That thought made meshudder, as if somebodyjust walked over my grave.Another thought struck mebefore I pushed the redpanic button though. Whatif . . . Just what if the badcontact is not a bad contactas such, but themotherboard not makingproper contact to thebackplane? The

motherboard seats in adrawer-like unit and thewhole drawer is pushedback and locked, for secu-rity purposes obviously.These drawers seem a bitflimsy somehow, a bitshaky and loose. Nice ideato dwell upon. Only way tofind out if that’s the casewas to push the drawerfirmly back in place andholding my breath at thesame time. Wow! It worked.I don’t believe it! I had aresistance reading now onall the color pins at theconnector in Fig. 1. Bril-liant! Fabulous! Happy daysare here again. Just think-ing about it though mademe feel a bit down since asI had actually originallyassumed (or blamed rather)the problem was from themonitor. I was a bit disap-pointed at myself for takingthe wrong road. However onthe other hand I was some-what elated as these Cero-nix monitors can be prettychallenging to diagnose

and repair. They are won-derful monitors in them-selves and in the rightframe of mind, they are apleasure to work on.

Another Editor’s Note: Thereis a wealth of Ceronixtroubleshooting informationavailable online (and free)on the Slot Technical Server(my solar-powered fileserver, sponsored by Cero-nix). Just go to slot-tech.comand look in the “InterestingStuff” sub directory underCeronix. You will find aninvaluabe, step-by-steptroubleshooting flowchart,complete with illustrationsand typical voltages foreach pin of the integratedcircuits. The Ceronix monitortroubleshooting system isdesigned for troubleshootingusing just a digital multim-eter.

Just to prove that the colorswere fine, I pushed themonitor in place and trueenough, all the three colors

Figure 4 - A brownish area may mean that components haveoverheated.


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were displayed. That wasreally lovely actually. Ididn’t realize that I wouldbe so happy to ‘see red’again. Whilst in place, allthe touch-screen neededwas a quick calibration andthat was fine too.

The first fault (the quickiethat is) was over and donewith. Now is the turn of thesecond and the difficultone. Come to think of it, ifthe ‘quickie’ turned out tobe a bugger to repair, whoknows just how difficult it’sgoing to be to tackle thewidth problem? I supposethe schematic has to comeout again, along with themonitor from the machineand commence surgery onemore time.

A width fault, a pin-cushionfault, a horizontal problemof any kind is nine out often related to the line out-put circuit. That’s what wecall it here in Malta and inthe UK too. Readers mayalso know this as the “hori-zontal output” circuit. Thiscircuit is under extremestress and it’s no big secretthat many monitors sufferfailures in this area duringthe course of their lifetime.Usually when it’s a severecase of the picture beingway too wide, the ‘horizon-tal size’ adjustment mightas well not be there. Thepincushion syndrome canbe seen in most caseswhere the size is too wide.Usually, the only adjust-ments that can be made insuch cases would be the‘horizontal shift’, but other


than that, it’s curtains. Agreat variety of issues cancause problems on thehorizontal circuitry. Thesecould be something to dowith the supply lines. Itcould be a defective lineoutput transformer (TheLOPT or “lop-tee” is alsocalled the “flyback trans-former”) it could be a faultycapacitor, it could also bethe horizontal yoke itself(although I don’t recall everhaving come across a faultyyoke) or a host of otherpossibilities.

A good approach to this sortof fault is good old fash-ioned visual inspection.Look for components whichhave lost their sparkle,their shine. Look for capaci-tors that have become in-flated or leaky. Look out forareas on the printed circuitboard (on the solder side)which have gone slightlybrownish. This brownishcolor indicates that a com-ponent has become hot.However, don’t be misled bythis as some componentsdo normally get very hot. Itall depends on the designreally so this discoloring incertain areas doesn’t meanthat you can start jumpingup and down for joy, notyet anyway.

Components such as diodescan’t really be spotted froma mile away if they got toohot, but the cathode ‘band’might end up being difficultto see when compared toanother diode which hasn’tbeen subjected to overheat-ing. Also, a solder joint

which has been subjectedto a high temperature won’tbe as shiny as the others.This incidentally might alsolead to a dry joint. All theselittle things will help out inthe location of a faultycomponent just by lookingat the printed circuit board.

I usually practice what Ipreach and this methodallowed me locate this‘difficult’ fault in a just fewmoments.

Being a width problem, thefirst area checked is aroundthe flyback transformer andit didn’t take long to locatewhich section got too hot.Things started looking upafter the ‘quickie’ issue. Itturned out that one of the

diodes there (diode 478, anHER205) had taken a beat-ing.

The diode was actuallyshort circuited which upsetthe circuit somewhat, lead-ing to the picture goingwide. This component is a2A 400V high efficiencyrectifier. They don’t usuallygo (not that often anyway)but when they do, theyusually create havoc on thepicture which can be easilynoticed.

This is an extract from theservice manual to describein detail just what happensin the section of the circuit.

When the MOSFET is on(gate voltage high) current


increases in inductor 458and when the MOSFET isturned off the current isdumped in to the 24-27Vline through diode 462. Themagnitude of this current,from the diode modulator, isdetermined by the dutycycle of the MOSFET whichis a function of the controlvoltage. Diodes 477 and478 with current equalizingresistors 475 and 476 rec-tify the flyback waveformpresent on the GND refer-enced node of the horizontaltuned circuit. This current isconducted through inductor457 and integrated by ca-pacitor 456 and then iscontrolled by the drivercircuit. Diodes 477 and 478are the diode modulatordiodes and the forwardcurrent which the drivecircuit controls is the currentwhich determines the turnon delay of the GND refer-enced node of the horizontaltuned circuit. An increase inthe current of diodes 477and 478 produces a greaterdelay in the GND refer-enced node, and reducesthe amplitude of the flybackpulse at this node, whichresults in an increasedhorizontal size.

This is precisely what I hadwhen diode 478 went short.This increased currentthrough this shorted com-ponent caused a reductionin amplitude of the flybackpulse and hence the greatlyincreased size of the hori-zontal width. Thinkingabout it, the challengingfactor of this fault didn’t

quite match my expecta-tions, but then again it wasthe ‘quickie’ which took mefor a ride. It’s funny howlife is full of twists, espe-cially when you least expectthem but that’s what makes

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- James [email protected]

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Atronic e-motionValidation Error

Over the radio a Slot Atten-dant relayed the messagethe game was powereddown and back up and thegame would not come backup. We made our way to themachine and noticed thegame was stuck or frozen inthe middle of the “CashFever” bonus round. We re-powered the game downand the game came up toallow the patron to con-tinue and finish he bonusround. We also could notget into service mode andthe reset key would notrelease this game from itsfrozen state. Once thebonus round was finished,the game froze up again.The upper monitor had lostthe thermometer progres-sive figures.

Figuring the power offpower on repaired the firstproblem, we decided to trythis again. This time it keptdisplaying the APL initializ-ing and Game initializingerror message every ten

seconds. The game wantedto establish communicationwith the progressive butacted like it was missing.None of the progressivefigures were disrupted afterthis game which told methe daisy chain was stillconnected. After about fiveminutes of this orches-trated music (you knowwhen the Atronic makesthat noise when games goonline and offline) thegame finally went into aHand Pay Validation error.We checked the CVT to seeif the game was online andto perform the CVT forcedownload and nothinghappened. We also noticedthat the Mikohn displaywas beginning to go offline.We waited to see if thesystem would recover but itdid not. We cleared theSMIB to see if that wouldhelp us establish communi-cation but all it did waszero our meters. We triedthe COMM board clear andthat did not help either.

The next morning the gamewas sitting there waiting forus to continue on where weleft off. We started with anew communication boardand another COMM boardclear but that did not help.We were in the same boat

as the night before. I askedAGCO to come and removethe seals so I could try aRAM clear. I RAM clearedthe board, the game al-lowed me to set the options.I pulled open the cherryswitch on the game and themachine cleared all itsoptions and went into ser-vice. The game was bill andticket tested and ready forAGCO to seal the board.After AGCO arrived andsealed the board, the ma-chine powered up and thewhole process of the APL:initialized & Locked: gamewaiting to initialize startedall over again repeatingitself every ten seconds. Icall AGCO back down tobreak the seals on the CPUboard again but this time Ireplaced the CPU withanother one from the shop.This CPU kept on rebootingitself. I managed to get theoptions set but ran into ahardware error that wouldnot clear. I went back to theold CPU board just to see ifby chance I could get it upand running. I started allover with the Ram clearprocedure, optioned thegames, and the progressivevalues on the top monitorcame back up. This timebefore inserting my moneyand completing the bill and

Problems SolvedBy Kevin Noble


ticket test, I decided tosimulate the AGCO reseal. Idecided to just power downthe game and allowed thegame to reboot itself to seeif it would come back ingame mode. It did not. I wasback to square one just likethe other day when Reggieand I started troubleshoot-ing this problem.

I pasted the game on to thenext shift and upon myreturn after my days off thegame was up and running.I checked the MEAL bookfor what was done to repairthis problem but there wasno mention of any trouble-shooting or repairs done tothe game. I had to waituntil the afternoon shiftcame in and found out theMulti-media board wasreplaced and the gameRAM cleared and optionedagain. This same situationhappened to Richard

Haddow of GeorgianDowns. Richard contactedme on what we did to repairour game and I passed onwhat we did. Richard triedthe exact same procedurebut he had to go back andclear the COMM board.After the COMM board wascleared the game went intoa “memory failure” afterwhich he proceeded to do aRAM clear. I did receive ane-mail from him notifyingme that his game startingdisplaying the progressivefigures again. Thanks forthe heads up Richard.

Atronic e-motion Progres-sive Troubleshooting Tip

Lately, this problem washappening more and morefrequently on this bank ofprogressive games. Onlycertain games were af-fected. When talking to theother technicians at our

site, they agreed and theynoticed that it was onlyhappening to the “B” levelsoftware in the progressivegames on this bank. I inves-tigated it further andchecked the MEAL booksand found that “C” levelhad not one entry of thegame freezing or beingrebooted. We also deter-mined that most of thetime, this error can be resetby powering down the gameand powering back up. Thecatch is that it might takeseveral times before it ini-tializes and comes backonline. This is very timeconsuming and takes a lotof patience.

Atronic e-motion Freezing

This problem originated atFort Erie Slots and waspassed on to me by Nick.We too had a similar issuewith the game freezing.


Deal or No Deal (Master)and non-operational servicereset key switches syn-drome. A simple com boardclear was tried first whichturned out to be a night-mare. Once the com boardwas cleared, the progressiveinfo was lost on the over-head signage and game.APL to initialize messageappeared. The CPU wasreplaced which did notcorrect the issue of handpays and validation errors.The next step was thebackplane board where theBIOS chip is sealed. Thatwas the culprit. If youchange it you will be OK.Keep in mind that if thegame you are working on isa progressive like here atthe Fort, a com board clearfollowed by a CPU ram clearwill have to be done. If youdon’t follow these instruc-tions, the A Link programneeded will not function toset up your progressivesettings via dongle andcable.

It took us a long time tofigure this out. If items arenot set up correctly on theA link program, the tech(s)would have to perform thecom board and CPU ramclear steps all over again.There are no shortcuts withthis platform. Thanks guysfor this information andtroubleshooting solution.

BALLY 6000 Not PrintingTickets

During a small internalproject at our site to verifythe printer software on

some games on the gamingfloor, one machine all of asudden stopped printingtickets. I cannot tell youexactly what was done butall of a sudden the gamewent into manual jackpots.The GEN 1 printer, theprinter board, fiber boardwere all replaced and stillin test mode the gamewould not print a ticket.Next on our list would be aboard related problem.Because a RAM clear wasthe lesser of two evils, Chrisdecided to RAM clear theexisting board but theproblem remained. Sincethe CPU board was alreadyremoved from the game hedecided to swap the CPUwith a good known one. Hecleared that board, set allthe printer and progressiveoptions and the game cameback up but still would notprint any tickets. Chrishanded me a list of thingshe did starting with chang-ing the SMIB, printer as-sembly twice, printer har-ness, fiber board, and thepower supply and still thesame result. Chris decidedto call Bally and they sug-gested starting fromscratch. Taking Michaelsadvice, he started from stepone again and began withthe printer. This time heswapped the printer assem-bly with another game withthe power off. Tested theprinter and the ticketstarted its travel throughthe head and sat therewaiting to be removed. Theproblem was finally solved.Somebody must have un-plugged and plugged the

printer back in live from theribbon cable thus poppingthe little printer board thatsits in the back of the Gen1 tray.

WMS Video John WayneProgressive Values Stuckat Base Values and WouldNot Increment

Coming in the morning wewere handed our “to do” listfrom the Shift Manager.The list stated that ourJohn Wayne small threegame link progressive wascurrently down. The middlegame was not communicat-ing with the link progres-sive. We arrived at the gameand noticed that all threeprogressive levels weredisplaying each level’s basevalues while the other twogames displayed progres-sive values which weremore realistic. When weopened the game we no-ticed that the BV had beenswapped with another gamewhen the entries started topile up regarding a BVproblem. The BV problemeventually ended up beingthe progressive displayproblem handed to us inthe morning. In the bottomof the game we swappeddata cables on the splitterboard to see if there was abroken wire, bad cable oreven a bad splitter. Weknew that everything wasworking fine because whenwe unplugged the cable,the game would disableitself. We next checked theoptions and all the optionsseemed to be set correctly.We even checked the pro-


gressive data and the cor-rect figures from the othertwo games were displayed,but not in the top boxmonitor. We called WMSgaming and they asked usto try a RAM clear becausesomehow the communica-tions got messed up andthis would help reestablishcommunication to the topbox. We tried the RAM clear

and all the progressivefigures came back andstarted to increment cor-rectly with the other twogames. We also did our owntest on the game just toverify that the middle gamealso incremented the val-ues.

- Kevin [email protected]



Bally Alfa Reel Win-ners Reel Problem

While walking to our southshop (we are fortunateenough to have a north andsouth shop) upon arrival inthe morning, I noticed thata Bally "Reel Winners"game was shut down. Ilooked in our daily log bookand saw that it had beenshut down because of apossible bad reel controlboard. Well, to start offwith, why not turn on thegame and see what hap-pens? Once it was finishedwith booting up, it had a"topbox disconnected error"and I noticed that therewasn't any voltage on thereels. Another item I no-ticed, was that the reel

control board (located abovethe reels on an uprightAlfa) didn't have any of thelights on. Hmmm, could itbe a bad power supply, abad board or what? Iturned the game off andstarted to reseat the reelcontrol board. When Igrabbed the board to re-move it, I could tell that itwasn't seated all the way. Iput it back in, then re-moved it. The board defi-nitely wasn't seated prop-erly. With the board in-stalled properly this time, Iturned the game back on.It wasn't very long into theboot up process and thelights on the board startedflashing and the reels

started spinning. Once thegame was finished, I no-ticed some credits wereremaining. I let surveil-lance know that I was goingto "test" the game, and playoff the credits. I tested itfor a few minutes and ev-erything was ok. So far sogood, I haven't received anycomplaints about the gameyet. It looks like the prob-lem was a loose reel controlboard.

Bally Hot Shot ProgressiveCinevision Touch ScreenProblem

Why was this game turnedoff? I read our logbook andit stated that the game had

Quick & Simple Repairs # 50By Pat Porath

TM


a touch screen problem. Iwent to the game, turned iton and after bootup I testedit. Sure enough, the touch-screen wasn't working likeit should. You touch in onespot and it would show upin another. I turned thegame off and checked theconnections on the mainprocessor board andreseated it. I also gave thescreen a good cleaning withpaper towels and 3M TouchScreen Cleaner. After thegame booted up, I cali-brated it twice and itworked like it was supposedto. The screen was prettydirty so that would be myguess to what the problemwas. Note: When cleaningmonitors or LCDs that havea touch screen, it is a goodidea to use a cleaner that ismade for use with touchscreens.

Quest Area 51 KeptRebooting Itself

I received a complaint thata Quest Area 51 video gamekept rebooting itself. Textwould display on the screenbut the graphics wouldn'teven show up. When Iremoved the door for theprocessor and video cardarea, I noticed somethingright away. The cooling fanon the video card wasn'tspinning! These small fansare very important, not onlyin Quest games, but in ALLslot machines. In fact ALLcooling fans are importantin slots. With this particu-lar game the cooling fanlocated on the video cardwas shot. They are sup-

posed to move very easilywhen spun by hand. Thisone would barely turn andthe integrated circuit underit was quite hot. Luckily,the device didn't cook. Thefan was replaced with onesimilar and the game wasrunning again withoutproblems. A symptom of abad fan on a video card or ifthe complete card may bebad, is that the game

reboots itself or may notboot up all the way.

WMS Bluebird "SleepingForever" Error

Recently on a MonopolyTycoon Bluebird, I rebootedthe game because of a"progressive unconfigured"error and when it cameback, it had a "sleepingforever, unable to ini" error.

A symptom of a bad fan on a video card is that the gamereboots itself or may not boot up all the way.


What in the world is a"sleeping forever" error?

I disconnected the mainpower for 30 seconds,plugged it back in and gavethe game a reboot. Oncecompleted, it appeared tobe ok and ready for a cus-tomer to play. But whatdoes a "sleeping forever"error mean? I had to callour WMS service tech tofind out the answer; Icouldn't even guess. Hestated that the error canoccur when the CPU boardcomes loose or discon-nected from the backplaneboard. It only happens ongames that have the "CPUNext 2" that has a harddrive on it. The repair(guess I got lucky on mine)is to power off the gameand make sure the CPUboard is properly seated tothe backplane. If it isseated, try re-seating it andpower it back up. If thatdoesn't do it, he said some-times a RAM clear isneeded. When I first sawthe error I thought to my-self, what could this possi-bly mean and what can I doto resolve it? Now I knowwhat to look for. Back tothe original "progressiveunconfigured" error, some-times a reboot does thetrick, sometimes not. If areboot doesn't clear theerror, then we call WMSWAP (Williams Wide AreaProgressive). We give themthe machine number, loca-tion number and the gameserial number and ask ifthey can reset it for us.Usually within a few min-

utes, the game is backonline.

Oasis "Reinsert Card"Error

I received a call on an IGTParty Time progressivegame where the Oasissystem card readerwouldn't accept a card. Allthe display would show was"please reinsert card" whena card was put in. Theproblem may be a numberof things so why not startout with the obvious byreplacing the card readeritself. I went to our southshop and grabbed two.Since they were used andnot new, I had best not onlygrab one. Back at thegame, with this particularmodel (an IGT upright withan upper and lower LCD)the lower LCD needed to beremoved. The top glass andOasis bracket needed to beremoved as well. All ofthese components neededto be removed so I couldhave access and re-place thecard

reader and check the cardreader connection. TheLCD needs to be removedto have access to the threeOasis bracket bolts. The topglass needs to be removedbecause it helps hold it inplace. Of course I removedthe bracket that holds thecard reader and the cardreader itself.

I removed power from theSentinal and connected thereplacement card reader.Power was reconnected andmy floor card was inserted,removed, re-inserted, andremoved numerous times.The card reader would notread my card. I even triedit in the game next doorand it read my card rightaway so I knew that it wasgood. Maybe the replace-ment was bad? I tried theother replacement and thatone didn't work either.Maybe there is a loose cardreader cable connection atthe Sentinal? I looked atthat too. The cable looked

fine. A co-workerbrought me a spare

to try but it stillwould not

read acard.

Typical card reader.Photo courtesy Neuron


Do you need help with power supply repair? Maybe you don’t have a bench techat your casino. Maybe you are short-staffed and can’t get caught up with powersupply repair. Whatever the reason, a shelf full of bad power supplies doesn’t do youany good. Let me make it easy for you. Let me fix them for you, at a reasonablecharge using top quality replacement components. Just box them all up and sendthem to me.

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Well, back to the shopagain to grab more replace-ment parts. I grabbed adifferent Sentinal board,another EPROM and a newcard reader. Back at thegame, I tried the new cardreader and that didn'twork. Next, I tried thereplacement Sentinal witha new EPROM. Now thecard reader worked butsomehow I lost Sentinalcommunication. The oldEPROM was put in thereplacement Sentinal andthe problem remained.

What is going on? I almosthad to walk away from itbecause I was getting frus-trated. This time, I put thereplacement EPROM backinto the Sentinal andthought what I may havedone wrong. When I wasputting in the Sentinal, Iwas unsure of a fiber con-nector that is near the cardreader connector. Icouldn't remember if it wasconnected or not. I knowwe used to use it but Iwasn't sure since we wentto the "fiber converterboxes." I unplugged the

suspected connector andonce again applied power tothe Sentinal. Within 15seconds the green commu-nication LED on theSentinal board began flash-ing. This meant I had com-munication. Now whatabout the original problem,the card reader? On thesecond try my card worked!Finally the game was work-ing properly. It appearedthat one of the problemswas the Sentinal andmaybe the EPROM.

- Pat Porath- [email protected]

Repair Policy: No fix, no charge90 day warranty on all repairsIncludes all replacement parts and return shipping costs.

HOWEVER, I am not a miracle worker. If one corner is burned off your Aristocrat powersupply, I am not going to be able to repair it. If you have a crater in the PCB, I am not goingto be able to repair it. If you have attempted to fix it and have damaged the traces or solderpads, I AM NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO REPAIR IT. Sorry, but I am not interested inworking on a box of power supplies that you have worked on but failed to repair and I am notgoing to attempt to fix a power supply that has extensive physical damage. I will simplyreturn it to you. OTOH, if you don’t want it returned, I will be happy to take it to the electron-ics recycler for you instead.

Bally Power Supply - $69.00 Flat RateIGT Power Supply (Win-Tact WP203F11) - $89.00 Flat rate.

Aristocrat Power Supply (SETEC MK5PFC) - $159.00 Flat rate.

No RMA number needed. No paperwork needed. Just box ‘em up and ship them to me. I will return them to youand send you an invoice. No hidden charges or fees. Send to: Randy Fromm 1944 Falmouth Dr. El Cajon, CA92020 tel.619.593.6131 fax.619.593.6132 e-mail [email protected] Drop me an e-mail and let me knowthey’re on their way.

Subscriptions & Back IssuesWhy back issues of Slot Tech Magazine areimportant to own . . .

Slot Tech Magazine is strictly technical. As such, the magazine's contents are not timecritical. The repair information and technical data contained in past issues is just as valid

today as it was the day it was published.

Additionally, current and future articles more-or-less assume that readers are already familiarwith what has been covered in past issues. This editorial policy assures that Slot TechMagazine's contributing writers are not limited to "writing down" to the level of a novicetechnician but are free to continue to produce the most comprehensive technical articles inthe gaming industry.

Randy Fromm'sSlot Tech Magazine ispublished monthly by:Slot Tech Magazine1944 Falmouth Dr.El Cajon, CA 92020-2827tel.619.593.6131fax.619.593.6132e-mail [email protected]

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